- Paperback: 472 pages
- Publisher: Da Capo Press; New edition edition (Nov 29 2000)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0306809850
- ISBN-13: 978-0306809859
- Product Dimensions: 2.1 x 1.3 x 0.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 499 g
- Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #336,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
This affectionate biography of Woody Allen is the best account of his life you can buy. Eric Lax, a longtime friend of Allen's, does not recite Allen's story by chronological rote. Instead, he begins in the present day and digresses from it to past events. The result is an anecdotal account that manages to give all the details of Allen's development as an artist and a man while remaining consistently entertaining, enlightening, and funny.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
A feast for fans, this biography leans heavily on Woody Allen's own comments, interwoven verbatim with a shrewd, disarming portrait of an artist who feels "enormously alienated from other people." Lax ( On Being Funny: Woody Allen and Comedy ) is especially good on Allen's early years as New York University film school flunk-out, his transformation from stand-up comic to director, his influences (Mort Sahl, Camus, Odets, S. J. Perelman, et al.) and the recycling of his personal life into specific films. Lax is less revealing, however, when discussing the filmmaker's two marriages and 11-year relationship with Mia Farrow or the inner forces that drive him. Devotees will enjoy the behind-the-scenes glimpses of movies being written and shot. Photos. 50,000 first printing; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
This one doesn't rip him apart in matters that don't matter,
By
This review is from: Woody Allen: A Biography (Paperback)
A natural stage in my succession of becoming a Woody Allen freak was picking up a biography. Any single one would have suited my needs, because I knew only as much as somebody who had seen ten or so of his movies and was beginning to show some serious interest in this singular personality.It turned out that by accident I had picked out just the right book. Eric Lax delivers over 400 pages of what seems to be a very detailed and reliable account of Woody's life. Contrary to the tabloid-like obsession with Allen's women which many writers of today appear to revel, Lax's primary emphasis is on his work, influences, and progress as a comedian. A special section was added to the end of the book to summarise the events of the last ten years (the first edition of this biography was published in 1991), including the row with Mia Farrow and Woody's marriage to Soon-Yi Previn. But it remains a biography of the man it boasts in the title, not a collection of second-hand conjectures and prejudices about what he might seem to be. Indeed, this is left to the army of Woody admirers who like to derive his character from the roles he has played or written. The shattering of preconceived images that surround the private self of Woody Allen is probably one of the major strengths of Lax's book. Woody is shown as somebody who has been engaging in his beloved trade for years and now shows genuine surprise about all the fuss that is being raised around his straightforward life. Nevertheless, I refuse to buy such a portrayal, simply because I am one of those blind followers who have merged Woody on-screen with the real-life Woody. True or not, it is an illusion I am prepared to live, for that is the main attraction of his movies.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Reasonable bio of one of America's great artists,
By
This review is from: Woody Allen: A Biography (Hardcover)
It's a commonplace that many artists have questionable private lives. What Mr Allen does or doesn't do in his private life is of passing interest to me. That he likes younger women doesn't make him much different, maybe unfortunately, from millions of other men (is Rupert Murdoch a classic example or what?) If I want gossip I read a magazine. Mr Allen's work on the other hand interests me very much. This bio by Mr Lax is good for excerpts from Mr Allen's comedy routines and in revealing the movie making experience from the editting point of view, shooting, casting, writing and rewriting. I don't think the prose skill of Mr Lax is especially high but the book's subject matter is interesting enough, and Woody Allen's writing amusing enough, to carry it along.
1.0 out of 5 stars
under his thumb,
This review is from: Woody Allen: A Biography (Hardcover)
I read this book long before Woody Allen's personal troubles became public. (I've always been an admirer of Allen's films.) It is, hands-down, the worst biography I ever read. Lax is more than reverent of Allen; he is obsequious and subservient. At a very early point in the book, I began to sense that every word had been approved by Allen. By the end, I though Allen's publicist and psychiatrists had probably signed off too.P.S. If I had an option of giving this book no stars, I would have done so.
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